Turning Pages: Why writers should embrace their rejections

By Jane Sullivan

January 4, 2019 — 12.15pm

Writers, have you made your New Year's resolution yet? If not, here's an idea you might not have considered: in 2019, aim for 100 rejections.

At first sight, this seems a negative and decidedly defeatist goal. Rejection is such a painful and frequently demoralising experience, why would you actually aspire to it? Surely acceptance and publication are better goals to aim for?

Angela Duckworth, author of Grit: The Power and Passion of Perseverance, says getting rejections is a form of exposure therapy.Credit:keith morris news / Alamy Stock Photo

But there's actually a lot of sense in it, and some who have taken up such a resolution have written about their experiences and inspired other writers in turn. It's not easy: there are usually many moments of self-doubt and backsliding. But those who persevere seem to feel pretty good about it.

In one year, American writer Kim Liao got 43 rejections from literary magazines, residencies and fellowships, and she was pleased with her highest record up to that point. Her professional life turned around when a friend who always seemed to get those elusive residencies, fellowships and publications revealed her secret: "Collect rejections. Set rejection goals … if you work that hard to get so many rejections, you're sure to get a few acceptances, too."

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Liao shellacked all her rejection slips onto her writing desk, and thought of them as "tiny ticks on the slow-moving clock of my writing career". She became a reader and editor herself, and saw the submission process from the other side. "Now, I see rejection as a conversation," she writes in Lit Hub. "For every piece that is rejected, at least one other person read it, thought about it, and really considered whether it would be a good fit for publication."

She particularly treasures the rejections that come with some encouraging comment, however small. And yes, she's had many short stories and essays published in prestigious journals.

Another kind of writer, the comedian Emily Winter, took up the challenge last year, going all out for writing jobs, script contests, auditions, magazine pitches and comedy festivals. She got 101 rejections and 39 acceptances. "I'm so tired, and that's how I know I did it right," she writes in The New York Times. "If I weren't exhausted, it would mean I'd just spent the last year asking for things without putting in the work to earn them."

Angela Duckworth, the author of Grit: The Power and Passion of Perseverance, told Winter that what she was doing was exposure therapy: making herself more comfortable with failure to reduce her fear of it.

Another benefit of seeking rejection is that it encourages writers to aim higher – for example, to approach top-ranking international literary journals they'd never expect to give them the time of day. There are writers who have been turned down by The Paris Review or The New Yorker for years … and then one day, there's a yes.

Rejection of a book is particularly tough because writers put so much of their time, heart and soul into the work. But there are inspiring stories if you look for them. Heidi Durrow got 48 rejections from publishers for her book The Girl Who Fell from the Sky. She was told there was no market for a story about a half-black, half-Danish girl. Then her book won the 2008 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. It was published and became a bestseller.

The one problem the 100 rejections target hasn't yet solved is how to deal with the increasing number of occasions when writers don't receive a rejection at all … just silence.

Still, that's no reason for not giving it a red hot go. As writer Aaron Hamburger says: "If you're not getting rejected, you're not a writer. You're a hobbyist."